


Cardinal King One-Shots

by kyralih



Series: Cardinal King [2]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst and Humor, Drama & Romance, F/M, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-03-13 20:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3396083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyralih/pseuds/kyralih
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>26 One-Shots from Cardinal King, told from the perspectives of other characters: side stories, behind-the-scenes conversations, and important scenes Mamoru was not privy to will be the main focus of this collection, ending, perhaps, in a new beginning...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

# A is for Answers

She landed with a thud, first her feet, then her knees, and then her hands hitting the soil before she launched herself forward, fumbling as her balance fought with the stronger gravity of the planet. She stumbled, but continued, racing as she finally gained control, running full-out towards the castle. A rush of energy sparking through the air told her that they had followed; she pushed harder, striving towards the gates. She had to know.

“Princess! Come back!” Venus pleaded, her voice strong as she accumulated to the surface world.

“No!” she yelled, her toes pushing her forward as she finally reached the stone passageway. She threw her hand out to catch a column and propelled herself down the hallway that ran perpendicular to their garden; out of the corner of her eye she saw Jupiter racing parallel to her, meaning to cut her off at the next opening, so she caught a doorknob, twisted, and spun inside, her feet tripping in the process but she made it through, able to close the door after her. She was in a tea-room; Endymion’s rooms were still above and east of her, so she kept running. Her feet stained the soft carpet beneath her with grass and mud, but… her brows tightened and her heart hurt; what if it were true? But it couldn’t be! No! She raced forward, faster than the rumors could spread, faster than the doubt could move. 

Careening around corners she startled sleepy guards into following her, but with Venus and the others behind there was no way the guards would catch her. She stumbled up the stairs and down the hall, then finally found his rooms. She pulled the door open and dashed inside, then to his bedroom door. This would be locked, so she hit the door flat-palmed, “Endymion!” she called, “Endymion! Endymion!” her cries getting louder and louder; she couldn’t tell if he was moving behind the door – she couldn’t be quiet long enough to listen. They could be here any minute –

“Princess Serenity?” a breathless Kunzite breathed curiously, his sword drawn and ready as he entered the room; he lowered the blade, but she had no time to give to him. She continued to call for Endymion, yelling now. Behind her the room started to fill – Kunzite was joined by equally confused Nephrite, calculating Zoisite, and suspicious Jadeite. And then the senshi were at the door; a confrontation started – 

“Princess!” Mercury  
“Let us through!” Jupiter shoved into Nephrite, who barely held his ground.  
“What’s going on here?” Kunzite demanded.  
“Move aside!” Venus replied, equally demanding.  
“What is going on?!” Zoisite seconded; the shitennou were on guard now.  
“She said _Move aside_!” Mars repeated.  
\- but finally her palms moved farther as the door flew open. She threw herself at him, her hands hitting his bare chest as she stared up into his eyes, looking for truth or lies in the blue depths she loved so much.

“Serenity, what--?” he started, but there was no time for niceties!

“Do you intend to invade the Moon?” she interjected, her voice calm despite the mad beating of her heart, the flames and ice water coursing through her veins.

He looked honestly confused. “No,” he answered, but she pressed him further.

“Are you planning to extend Earth’s boundaries to encompass the Moon?”

“No,” he replied, his voice strengthening as the line of his brow furrowed in something akin to betrayal.

“Is Earth going to start a war?!”

“No!” he rebutted, his eyes concerned as she felt his hands take her shoulders, suspicion growing in his body language, “Serenity’s what is going on?!”


	2. B is for Backup

# B is for Back Up

He had known from the moment they landed in Elysion that he wouldn’t be with Endymion at the end. 

He slammed his fist in the face of a huge bull-like creature and felt some small satisfaction when its snout caved in and it flew backwards, knocking over other enemies in its wake. He liked that his weapon was meant for close combat – stone knuckles that created shockwaves? Jackpot! – but the victories here were always short-lived; while that one had disappeared, another slid into place, its maw snarling and hissing, reaching for him hungrily, and beside it, another, and another. His fists flew out to knock them back, to try to cut a path through the throng that would get them to Diana before it was too late, but even with Kobai, Moegi, and Hanada contributing, they were getting nowhere fast.

It had been a weird thought – the notion that he would let them go on without him – but, stranger still, was how completely calm he was about it. It wasn’t about him anymore; it was about something so much bigger. It was Earth, it was peace. It was about Mamoru, and Khalid, Yuu and Kaito, and the future that they would bring. It was about Usagi-chan, and his hope that she was alright; as much as he believed in Mamoru, he knew it would devastate him were she completely lost to them. 

They were outnumbered, the monsters replacing themselves faster than they could destroy them. He took a step back to give him room to strike forward and nearly jumped when his shoulder crashed into something – he whipped his head around to see the new threat, but found himself staring slightly down at Yuu Moegi, a dagger in his hand, glancing back at him. Yuu’s blue eyes were determined through the red mask on his face, though his concern for the situation was written plainly on his face. In that moment he knew what he was going to do, and knew that Yuu understood. Someone had to draw the monsters off again, give the others a brief respite, time to move farther in, and Nero had the perfect little trick to do just that. Yuu frowned, not liking the idea; Nero smiled, reassuring him, and turned back to the battle. 

He had wanted to be with Mamoru just in case Usagi-chan really was gone; he wanted to face it with him. He wanted to face Diana, to punch her straight in the face, hitting her so hard she went back into the past and _stayed there_. He wanted to be there when all of this was over and brag about how he knew they would make it. 

The brief distraction he needed to implement his idea was presented by Mamoru, as his Prince sent an energy blast forward, creating a path through the monsters towards the center of the battlefield. He gripped tight on his weapon in his left hand, and used his right to push Yuu after Mamoru, standing his ground and nodding to Kaito and Khalid as the West King brought up the rear. His friend paused only for a moment, then saluted him with his curved blade and followed after their Prince. They would get him to his goal – Nero knew that. He moved to block their exit and started yelling out taunts. He didn’t know if the monsters understood what he was saying about their faces or their mothers, but it looked like his point got across okay.

As he laced his fingers together and brought his power to bear, he still felt like they would make it. Dropping quickly and slamming his fists into the ground with all his might, he created a shockwave that threw the monsters back for a good twenty meters; but already more surged forward to fill their places. He smiled, catcalling them – maybe he was thick-skulled, but he still believed they would make it.


	3. C is for Corruption

# C is for Corruption

Venus tossed her bait to the floor as soon as they landed back in the decrepit palace of Elysion, scowling as she motioned a Phase-creature over to take the prisoner away. She turned to leave, to report to Diana and plan a new attack. She hadn’t gotten the crystal; she hadn’t killed the Prince.

“You’ll never win!” the girl cried out defiantly as the Phase-creature hauled her to her feet, “The Heavenly Kings will stop you!”

…But she had a consolation prize. She turned and strode powerfully back to the girl, her gloved hand easily wrapping itself around the girl’s throat as she pushed her backwards into the crumbling wall, Venus’s eyes slicing into hers. This interloper needed to understand her place – she was the new love interest of the old Prince of Earth, and the final nail in his coffin. If he had shown even a fraction of her own pain at the loss of Serenity, even a shadow of the loss she felt, she might have tried to talk Diana out of enslaving the world, but now? Now that the Prince had shown that his “one true love” was but infatuation, something easily thrown away in sight of a new face, she finally saw what the others had seen. Finally she understood the true worth of Terrans and found them and their shallow hearts to be cheap. She squeezed a little harder, her anger eclipsing despair and regret as she recalled how naïve she had been, how easily she trusted that the Prince’s heart had been true, and how much time she had wasted pulling punches in memory of her Princess’s love. If she had only realized sooner, would Mercury and Jupiter had to have died? But no matter, now she would avenge that heart and the heartache the Princess would have inevitably caused; and she would break him, starting with the girl he had sold the planet for.

Venus’s hand relaxed momentarily in confusion, and not wishing to appear weak, she used the opportunity to toss the girl aside and walked away, a troubling thought worming its way into her mind. There had been something in that girl’s eyes, something in her resilient, yet understanding gaze that felt almost familiar.

\---------------------------  
She stood stoically beside Diana, watching the hoard of Moon Phase creatures writhing beneath them in a sea of monsters. One hand on her hip, one foot propped up on the ruins of the parapet they stood on, she was making mental notes and calculations, planning both for an invasion and a defense of Elysion, should Endymion take the bait. But even as she surveyed and planned, she could not shake the uneasy notion that had been brewing in the back of her mind since her interrogation with ‘Jewel Tiara’, Tsukino Usagi. A brief scan of the empty rooftop around them gave her an opening, and while even the notion made her feel foolish, she asked her question anyway. “Is there even a chance that Serenity has been reborn with us?”

Diana stepped back from the ledge and gave her a suspicious glance, “Impossible,” she replied, “We have spoken on this topic before. Serenity could not be reborn as you and I and your fellow senshi had been, for she had died before the miracle gave us new life in this future.”

Mars had asked a similar question several months ago, when all of it had begun, when they had begun to remember their past, and understand their present situation. Their duty to the Moon Kingdom to avenge the death of their people and their beloved Princess. “But,” she tried again, despite Diana’s annoyance with her continuance, “What if the timing was just perfect? What if her essence had been saved?”

“By ‘essence’ I assume you mean her soul, and, again, we have spoken of this, Venus,” Diana turned to her with a mix of exasperation and pity, “Our souls are protected by our Star Seeds, yours by your Sailor Crystal, and Princess Serenity shared her star seed with Queen Serenity in the form of the Silver Crystal. You have seen that Silver Crystal, Venus, and Queen Serenity’s body encased therein; it was not reborn into this future. I do not know what happened to Princess Serenity’s soul; I don’t know if it faded away, returned to the Galaxy Cauldron, or is being protected in the same way Queen Serenity’s body is, but there is no chance that it was reborn.”

Feeling sheepish, Venus held her tongue and returned to her job. It had been a stupid idea anyway. The similarities in appearance between Jewel Tiara – or, Tsukino Usagi – and Princess Serenity were mere coincidences, the elaborate trick of thousands of years of genetics working their way perfectly to give her pause. But the pause it gave her… the girl’s smile, her demeanor, the feeling of familiarity when their eyes met… she couldn’t let the argument go just yet. “If she had been reborn, how would our mission change?”

“Venus, we are planning a war; your hypotheticals serve no purpose here.”

“Would we even have a war?” she continued, thinking of the girl’s easy smile, her trusting gaze. “If Princess Serenity were here, we would have no reason to fight Earth anymore, would we? We could go back to the Moon Kingdom and rebuild, we could live in whatever peace we could muster –“

“And _lose_?!” Diana yelled, anger flaring in her eyes.

“We have already lost!” Venus yelled back, her voice cracking. “Our people, our Kingdom, our friends!” she paused, the memory of their deaths in this lifetime had left her empty, and this complete denial of the chance that Serenity could yet be alive after secretly building hope in Usagi was tearing down whatever reserves she had left. “Mars, Jupiter, Mercury! They fought and died avenging Serenity’s death, gathering energy from the Terrans – _innocent_ Terrans, who had no hand in what happened in our past – so that we could awaken Queen Serenity – for what?! To destroy the world that had destroyed our Princess?

“But what if she had gotten the same chance we have?! If Princess Serenity has been reborn, we don’t need to fight anymore! We don’t need to risk awakening Queen Serenity and confronting the corrupted crystal – we could live in peace!”

“Venus!” Diana snapped, a scowl darkening her face.

“It’s not what Serenity would have wanted in the first place!” Venus continued, her resolve strengthening. They could escape, she and Usagi; they could return to Earth, go into hiding. She wasn’t sure if the girl was her Princess reborn, but she was willing to take the chance, and to separate herself from what Diana was planning. She might even jump sides to prevent this massacre. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?! They had been operating on their own feelings of sadness and anger and loss, rather than considering what Serenity would have wanted for them. “She would have never wanted something like this to happen – killing innocents to somehow make up for her death? Continuing to fight in a war that ended thousands of years ago, a war that she detested? Diana!” she pointed out over the fields, “This is no way to honor her!

“She is alive,” she continued, “I know she is. I’ve found her. Diana, if you would just talk to her, listen to her voice, look at her, you would see it, too! We haven’t killed anyone yet, we can still stop before it’s too late!” She paused, breathing heavily, watching Diana, gauging her, her body tense and ready to run. 

Diana’s expression became neutral, her eyes softening. “Do you really think it’s her?” she asked, and Venus’s heart surged.

“I do.”

Diana looked out over their field of monsters and sighed. “Then it’s already too late,” she said.

Confusion kept her grounded for only a split second longer than usual, but that split second cost her everything. Diana was on her, knocking them both down, her fingers clawing at Venus’s forehead, casting her tiara aside. Venus struggled, but Diana had her arms pinned beneath the weight of her knees. The last thing she felt was Diana’s thumb pressing against the center of her forehead, and then a rush of burning energy.


	4. D is for Decoy

# D is for Decoy

“I’m home!” Nero Midori yelled to the empty foyer, his voice echoing loudly through the grand hallway. 

The fairy, who had been in a terribly bad mood from the get-go, practically shook with distaste as she rounded on him, “Have you no respect?!” she hissed quietly, her tiny finger pointing at him angrily.

He smiled broadly, laughing loudly into the cavernous space, “What, for empty rooms? Chill out, _Fairy Princess_ , no one sleeps near here.” His grin faltered as his clever nickname caught up with him. “You weren’t a princess in the past or anything, right?” His stomach flipped – what if they were _related?_ Or, worse, _betrothed?_ His nose crinkled at the thought.

“Hardly,” she replied snippily, flying off, hopefully to cool off about whatever had her in a tizzy. 

He led the way to the guest rooms, walking casually with his hands behind his head, glancing around to see if the decorator had swapped out any paintings recently. The silence creeping up on them, he glanced over at his guest, the last of their team. Khalid Kobai was a transfer student, like him; he originally lived in the Middle East, but through small talk Nero had already learned he moved back to Tokyo with his mother after something happened with his father. Or, at least, that was Nero’s best guess, as the other guy hinted at only needing to tell his mother about his new living arrangements. They’d decided – rather, Helios, Khalid and Beryl had decided, it didn’t really matter to him one way or another – that Khalid would move into the mansion here to better help with his defense. The notion irked him a bit – he could take care of himself, did they not see that _giant crater_ on the back lawn? – and, logically speaking, he was pretty much cleared by Moon Kingdom standards, right? Jupiter’s ghost cloud or whatever had been through here and came back empty handed, so why would they need to revisit his humble abode?

Eh, regardless, he like the opportunity to get to know the other, see what it was like fighting alone for so long. Maybe coax him into playing some video games – the guy looked like he could use a little amusement. As they rounded the last corner to the hall of guest bedrooms and he chose a room at random, opening the door for his guests, he made an attempt to strike up a conversation, asking casually, “So, you’re going to be the Decoy Prince?” 

“Looks like you’ve already got that covered,” Khalid replied, his tone cool as he stepped through the door.

“I…what?” Nero replied, the insinuation struggling to make sense. He looked to Helios and saw his confusion mirrored there. Beryl zipped between them, and Helios was quick to fly into the room after her.

“ _What do you mean?_ ” his mentor asked with suspicion, and Nero followed, wanting to know exactly the same. He shut the door behind them. Khalid stood at the window; Beryl on the wardrobe beside. Nero stepped aside as Helios grew in size, probably as a means of getting the truth quickly out of the pair of them. Nero’s arms crossed his chest defensively – what did they mean, he had it covered? He wasn’t the decoy prince, Khalid was; they had just discussed it back at the scene. “ _Midori Nero is no decoy – he –_ “

“Well he’s _not_ Prince Endymion, so what would you call him?!” Beryl interrupted in an agitated yell, stomping her foot and glaring at Helios without remorse, “He is not Prince Endymion, and your farcical attempt to keep that quiet has put the real prince in danger! It’s just unforgivable, Helios!”

“ _Not Prince Endymion?!_ ” Helios returned, nearly as passionate, “ _Midori Nero transformed without a pendant, has rallied the Kings and has access to the Golden Crystal! This is Endymion, Prince of Earth!_ ”

“Oh _please_ ,” Beryl scoffed, pointing at Nero. Her eyes were still bright with anger as she stared down Helios, “It’s _Nephrite_ , can’t you see that?!” her words hung in the air as Helios turned, slowly, to stare at him. He could feel Helios’s questions in his gaze, his disbelief, and Nero fought not to let it get to him, standing straight under the scrutiny. A moment passed, and Nero met and kept Helios’s gaze. “You really can’t, can you?” Beryl added, her voice softening. “You’ve forgotten, as they have… Well,” she said, suddenly taking flight, “This is one thing you need to remember,” she alighted on Helios’s nose and knelt down, her hand touching his forehead beneath his horn. She muttered something, and Helios stood stock still as her hand began to glow.

“What’s she doing?” Nero asked.

“Trying to unlock his memories,” Khalid replied calmly, still looking out towards the city.

He hummed a response. Seconds ticked by. “Has she tried that on you?” he asked, trying to get a better picture as the energy of the moment strummed in the air. 

“Yes,” Khalid replied.

“So… do you remember it?” Nero asked, clarifying, “Our past?”

His guest turned to face him, “Enough,” he replied with a shrug.

He smiled, “I’m really not him, am I?”

Khalid shook his head, “No.”

Nero nodded his head. He wasn’t the Prince. He felt like that should have come as a relief, or maybe should have made him a little envious or jealous of whoever it really was, but, honestly, he didn’t feel much of anything. Probably because he hadn’t really taken the whole Prince thing seriously, he reasoned. It had been annoying, really; being ordered to sit on the sidelines, always having someone with him, having to ask his dad weird questions about that old family heirloom. … Honestly the constant company wasn’t too annoying; he liked these guys, they felt like the first real friends he’d had, but not being the prince didn’t change that at all. Well, not for him, anyway. “Who is it?” he asked instead, considering the three of them: Mamoru, Yuu, and Kaito. 

“You already know.”

Did he? Yuu acted like a prima donna sometimes; if he were the real prince they were all doomed. Er, comically speaking, he mentally amended, not wanting to inadvertently jinx this whole save-the-world deal. Kaito as prince… well, it wouldn’t be a bad idea, would it? Kid’s smart, annoying for sure, but Nero could picture him running a country. …but it didn’t feel right. Glancing at their new ally, he suddenly wondered if his chain was being pulled – was Khalid the prince? He had that leadership quality, a little more on the tough side than Mamoru, but… and suddenly it hit him. He got it, and he felt idiotic considering anyone else. “It’s Mamoru, isn’t it?” he decided. He didn’t exactly know how he knew, just that he did.

Khalid nodded just as Beryl jumped off of Helios and the unisus blinked, shaking his head. ‘ _Mamoru, all this time?_ ’ he trailed off, hanging his head. ‘ _All this time and I never realized… I was living with him and I never even suspected…_ ’

“Hey,” Nero offered, interrupting Helios’s little self-thrown pity-party, “Couple thousand years or so would mess with anyone’s memory, right? Don’t worry too much about it. I mean he’s alive and kicking, that’s gotta count for something.”

Beryl, back on her wardrobe perch, huffed, muttering quietly, “Risking his life fighting senshi, dallying with unknown entities, practically giving himself away to the enemy with a narrowly avoided Golden Energy attack, but, you know,” she gesticulated wildly with an exaggerated shrug, “hey, at least he’s still alive and kicking so there’s that.”

Nero scowled at her blatant sarcasm but let it go; mistakes had been made in ignorance, now they can make things right. “So what’s the plan now?” he asked, though he already knew how he wanted to move forward.

“Clear up this whole business and get to doing what we’re supposed to be doing – protecting Endymion,” Beryl stated. “Where does he live?”

“Wait,” Nero called, before Khalid could unlock the window, “Would that _really_ be protecting him?” they all paused, Beryl looking at him like he was an idiot, Khalid not too far behind. “Helios, Moegi told me once about Mamoru’s original plan to protect the prince…

\------  
Loo de doo, always wanted to write out one of Beryl’s angry rants about how Mamoru had been treated xD I love reading through the first few chapters as though I were Beryl or Kunzite watching in on what was going on XD So many “WAIT, HE DID WHAT?!”s XD teehee bahaha.


	5. E is for Evening Star

# E is for Evening Star

He reclined, staring up at the night sky with a wash of puzzling nostalgia and momentary anxiety, his pulse reacting in a way he had never understood. It was just the full moon. 

When he was younger he had calmly questioned his mother about it; having read something about repressed memories, he asked her about the stories told to him when he was a small child, wondering specifically if any had vilified the full moon. However, his mother could not place his apprehension, either: none of the bedtime stories she remembered telling featured the full moon or the moon in general. He would never know if the feeling stemmed from his father, so he was resigned now to accept it and move on. The full moon was something he subconsciously dreaded for a split second every time he laid eyes on it.

At first he had tried to dispel the fear by studying all he could about the moon; if he knew everything about it, there would be no reason to be afraid. He could recite many facts now about the moon, could tell time using its face, could predict tides and plot eclipses, could name every major feature of its Earth-facing side, yet still the feeling remained. He had been able to face down every fear he had ever had; he had learned what he could about it, faced it, and overcame it; but how could you face and overcome the moon?

The fear faded – it only lasted for a few seconds – and he looked away, instead watching the leaves twitching in the faint breeze. He let the night calm him, and once he was at ease, he looked up again, felt the fear, and tried to quiet it faster, his every nerve on end as the pale white glow started to burn into his eyes. He would overcome it.

 

The night progressed, his mother had been out to see him and retired to bed, and still he sat, watching the moon trek across the sky. His eyes were growing heavy when he felt a sharp jolt in his chest, a fear similar to that he was trying to fight, but much stronger, much more directed. He sat up with a start, taking his eyes off the moon to regain control, but the sharp panic did not falter. He felt the urge to run, and immediately fought it. He would not flee, especially from invisible dangers. He stood, breathing deeper, looking around and wondering if he had somehow driven himself crazy; and then wondering if a crazy person would ever consider that, feeling only marginally better about the situation. 

Minutes passed and still the panic remained, lowering only slightly, and his instincts were on overdrive. Fight or flight. Fight or flight. But nothing was there. He could not calm himself down, and so he did what he always had: he decided to overcome it. He stood, not exactly knowing where he was going, and grabbed the nearest object to use for defense – a broom. Swinging it up over his shoulder, he let the bristle end hang behind his back as he strode casually into the front yard, and then down the street, away from their storefront home, following his feeling of fear. A scream up ahead threw him forward faster – it wasn’t his imagination, something dangerous was out there!

In a full sprint he raced down the block, following the scream, turning down an intersecting street, mentally reviewing his training in Wu Wei Kung Fu, a form of martial arts his father taught him. As he came upon the scene he hesitated for only a moment; he had been expecting thugs, maybe a thief, maybe a gang, but instead found himself face-to-face with a hulking beast. Strewn about in its wake were a trio of people, barely conscious; in its grip was a fourth, the woman who had screamed. He flipped the broom around and rushed forward, lunging to the side to avoid a swipe of its great paw, and stabbed, jabbing upward until he felt the end of the handle connect with something soft - the beast’s eye –and then pushed a little further and released.

It growled in rage, releasing the woman, whom he lunged for, caught, and deposited safely on the sidewalk before turning to face the beast again.

“Who – Kunzite?!” a high-pitched voice cried in alarm; he paid it no heed; still squaring off with the monster, moving slowly to keep its attention. 

“Help them and run,” he instructed to whoever the new voice was, “And then call the police.”

“The police can’t help you,” the voice admonished as its owner flew in beside him, hovering close, but not blocking his view of the monster’s good eye. “They don’t have powers here; now what are you waiting for? Destroy it!”

Don’t have power here? He chanced a glance at her, and, shocked, forced his gaze back to the monster ahead of him. Was this some nightmare he had inadvertently provoked? A tiny human with insect wings was speaking to him as though they knew each other and suggesting that he had some sort of special ability that law enforcement did not; however, he had not fallen asleep. The world around him was real, he knew that. He also knew that the creature was about to strike. “Move!” he instructed sharply, ducking as a mammoth paw sliced through the air over his head; he dropped to a crouch and then sprang up to strike at a vulnerable spot. The beast recoiled, stepping back away from him, and the fairy flew back into view.

“You… you’re like them…” she stated, her voice suddenly unsure. She disappeared from view and he jumped and rolled aside, out of the monster’s attack, and struck again at an undefended flank; he could tell, however, that he wasn’t doing much damage. At this rate he would tire well before it did. “Oh! I understand now!” the fairy exclaimed, reappearing in front of him. “We’ve just got to unlock it! Here!” she hovered in the same spot and he dashed away, giving the creature another target as she did whatever she was doing; a moment later a pink stone was flying at him; he caught it instinctively. “Call upon it! Kunzite Power Transform!”

But he didn’t have to yell anything; as soon as he touched the stone a power washed over him, invigorating him, giving him strength. In a flash he felt a hilt form in the palm of his hand, a curved scimitar fitting comfortably, almost like an extension of his arm. He slashed forward, the weapon feeling natural in his grip, and sliced at the beast. He dealt a crucial blow; the creature yelled, then crumbled to dust as blue light dissipated. The light moved towards the unconscious victims, and immediately the people took a deep breath and started struggling to sit up.

What was all that? His mind felt fuzzy as a narrative streamed through his consciousness; thoughts and memories that were far away, and yet he knew they were his. He was Khalid Kobai, and yet… he was someone else. Someone who had lived a different life, in a different land, someone who had something very important to protect; he was Kunzite, the King of the West, and… “Evening Star…” he said aloud, the name evoking a pang of sadness, a memory of shadows and light, murky and indistinct, took over his mind and was gone in a flash. What… or who…?

“West King…” the fairy called softly, bringing him back. “Are you…?”

“Let’s go.” He beckoned, turning back the way he had come, the long cape trailing theatrically behind him as the woman who had screamed called out after him, asking his name. He jumped, feeling he needed space, and found himself easily on a second story roof; he continue walking, the maneuver new and familiar at the same time; he jumped to neighboring rooftops, and finally stopped when he was well away from the scene. He turned to find the fairy - the name Beryl came to mind – and, accepting the indescribable assurance that nothing would ever be the same, invited an explanation. “What’s going on?”


	6. F is for Fairy

# F is for Fairy

_“Who is that?”  
“Oh, her? I forget her name, but she’s a representative from one of those outlying areas.”  
“Really?!”  
“Shh!”  
“Well, what’s she doing here? Vying for one of those water wells Prince Endymion is promoting?”  
“I don’t think so; I heard she calls herself a sorceress.”  
“No way!”  
“I heard she came to join the Maenads – “  
“Did she get in? We should go introduce ourselves – “  
“No, I heard she choked on the exam; she was dismissed before even seeing Helios!”  
“A charlatan then?”  
“Probably.”  
“Why is she still here?”_  
She softly sifted sand onto her paper, the particles clinging to the fresh ink, helping them to dry. Taking deep and even breaths, she deposited the remainder of her handful in the tiny sandbox built into the library’s table, then collected her pens, topped her inkwell, and stood to gather her precious tomes. She handled the books carefully, arranging them neatly in a stack to be carried, her eyes lingering on the topmost title, “The Science of the Arcane”. That this library would even consider letting her borrow a book such as this… that was why she remained. She collected her belongings, stowing the writing utensils in her soft shoulder bag, placing her letter on top of her books, and carefully lifted the stack from the table. She used her foot to tuck her heavy chair back into place, then turned towards the exit, her dark eyes casually passing over the pair of gossipers by the shelf of arcane books; their hair was done in the maenad styling, their eyes following her every move, their whispering voices hissing out from behind careful hands that blocked their mouths.

Who needed them? She told herself.

She turned to open the library’s great door with her back, putting her weight into turning the hinge; when enough space had been made, she twisted out into the sunlight of midday, blinking furiously to adjust to the light level, walking carefully so as not to disturb her precious cargo. Bells rang the hour, their reverberations singing through the city, and Beryl took another deep breath, expelling the air slowly and purposefully, releasing the rejection as best she could. This is where she belonged. She just had to make a place for herself.

Traversing the streets, she had one place in mind. If the Maenads would not have her, there were alternatives. She would continue to practice her art – they’d realize what fools they’d been one day – and meanwhile work to better herself –

A sharp tug at her shoulder set her off balance and her precious books fell into the street as her bag was torn from her; “Hey!” she tried to resist, her hand grabbing to the strap as best she could, but the thief’s speed quickly overcame her strength and she, too, fell into a heap in the street. Her bag, her belongings, her money, her hopes and future – _what was she doing here_?! Her eyes welled up, threatening to cry in her frustration at the world, at her shortcomings and her failure, but suddenly her bag reappeared before her.

“Are these yours?” a voice asked as a young man crouched down to her level. She nodded and gratefully took the satchel back, checking its bindings to be sure it was still intact, that nothing had broken.

“Thank you,” she said, satisfied that it was intact, and looked up to see whom her advocate had been; her breath caught in her throat, her eyes doubling in size – “Prince Endymion!” He was looking off down the street in the direction the thief had run, but she would recognize that profile anywhere. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest, her cheeks blushing furiously; embarrassed, she looked away and immediately spotted her books. Gasping involuntarily, she lurched forward to recover them, hoping they had not been damaged; a pair of hands joined her and her concentration wavered.

“I apologize for the inconvenience,” he stated, “The guard in this sector will be increased.” She could practically feel his gaze shift to her, his attention making her jittery in an embarrassing way. “Are you hurt?” he asked, placing a book atop the one she had recovered.

“No,” she shook her head, “just a scratch.”

His hand hovered over hers and a pleasant warmth spread through her, gathering at her scraped palms and easing the pain in her shoulder from the sharp tug from before; she marveled, barely able to respond; he put the last book on the stack, scooped them up, and stood, offering his hand to her. Hesitantly she took it and he helped her to her feet. He offered her books and she held out her arms to accept them. “Thank you,” she replied, still feeling dazed and a little star struck; she had hoped to run into him again, but when she was a little more impressive…

“Oh,” he stooped and stood again, his charming blue eyes tracing a line in his hands, “Is this yours?”

She glanced at it and blushed, “Oh, um, yes it is,” she replied, spying her letter.

He smiled, placing the letter atop her books, “I’m sure you’ll do well at the University.” He caught her eye and his brow raised curiously, “Do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar…” She could barely breathe, yet she somehow managed to utter the name of her home town; she didn’t need to explain anything else, the recognition in his face told her that he remembered their brief time together without further description. “You’re Beryl, right?” She nodded, partway astonished that he remembered her name when they had barely spoken. “You were a great help constructing that well,” his smile was genuine as he added, “Elysion is lucky to have you.” Her heart skipped a beat. He then nodded his head and wished her a good day, calling out to one of his Heavenly Kings down the street as he left.

Why hadn’t she left?

…because she still wanted to work with him.

\------------------------------  
Within a year she went from student to colleague, surpassing her peers and learning everything she could about ancient mysticism and the arcane arts, along with general community planning and design; she was invited to the castle by a teacher to sit in on a debate over using public funding to build improvements away from their capital city; little by little she found her voice in these meetings, and soon was a deciding voice for the people from the far reaches of the Earth Kingdom. There she was strong, she was decisive, and she was good at what she did. Good enough, in fact, that she was noticed by Zoisite, one of Endymion’s guardians, and earned an invitation to sit at deciding meetings about future Golden-Kingdom-backed public projects.

At that point in her life, everything was perfect. She had power, she had a voice, she was recognized for her intelligence, and she was working closely with the Royal Family; even, on occasion, Prince Endymion. Still her heart fluttered when she saw him, but when she finally worked up the courage to approach him… she was gently turned down. She could not begrudge his choice; the world was changing, but not that quickly. She was from nowhere, she had no titles to her name, no power that she herself did not scrape up, but… it still hurt. She was able to hide it effectively; she continued to work closely with Endymion and the Heavenly Kings; they were on a first name basis, and while they sometimes joined forces to tease her, she felt like she was almost part of the team. And while she had not been inducted to the Heavenly Kings, she privately vowed to use her abilities to help protect the Prince in whatever way she could. She learned all she could of his power and theirs, of the Soul Gems they held, and acquired a Beryllite stone to use as her own magical focus. She wore the dark stone as a pendant across her forehead, closest to her power center – her mind – and did her very best at her job.

When rumors began to spread about Endymion’s love interest, she ignored them as best she could. It didn’t concern her; she wouldn’t get involved, she wouldn’t spread or listen to the rumors, she just did the best she could to continue working, and to quiet the little voice inside that still thought there was hope for her. However, when rumors reached her about the possibility that the girl was from the Moon, she took an interest. She had heard of such a notion – of people from the Moon – while studying… without much on her part, she suddenly became a leading authority on the Moon Kingdom, despite the lack of general knowledge about the place. She started academically reporting directly to High Priest Helios, so when hints of a war started brewing, she was on the informational frontline. 

\--------  
The night of the battle she had been ordered to evacuate the castle with all other noncombatants, yet she remained, offering her arcane gifts to help Helios and the Maenads move the castle to the depths of Elysion. Once the deed was done, the Maenads and Helios turned to medical purpose; she, instead, stood watch from above. Using her skills she covertly aided the Earth forces where she could, but she knew from the beginning that it was futile. When Endymion and his protectors left the castle for the battlefield, she followed, shadowing Endymion quietly, a sword in hand and shield at the ready. She had not been trained in combat. She was afraid, but she had made her vow, such as it was, and she would not live with herself if something were to happen that she could have prevented.

As Diana honed in on him, she took his instruction and move back with the rest, her eyes on him, her mind running through enchantments that might help, fighting to remember a spell that could slow Diana down, maybe prevent her from teleporting – but in the end it was useless. She was there when the Moon Princess sacrificed herself for Endymion, and she saw the look on his face, the desperation in his tone, and knew that she never even stood a chance. But as desperation turned to crazed, to determined, she prepared herself for whatever came next. The Golden Crystal was known for its powers of growth, of rebirth; if he were to activate them now, everything could be sent to the future. They could all be reborn, the Moon Kingdom as well; they could be walking into a trap. As the Golden light erupted from his body, she had moments to decide on a plan; putting all of her faith in one notion, she cried out an incantation and shed her mortal skin just as the light moved through her, and came out whole. The rest of the populace was gone, sent who-knew-where or when, and she was alone but for two bodies. One was encased in crystal, the moonlight shining off of its surface in a threatening way. The other was hers.

 

Years passed; flowers grew over the grave she had made for herself, and she wondered how long the peace above would last. The library survived with her, but with time the entire castle was soon overtaken with the greenery of the inner-earth realm. She understood the fate she had given herself; in her new fairy body, she was no longer mortal. She would not age; she would not die of natural causes. She had exchanged her chance at an afterlife for the ability to one day be of some help to him; her soul gem was too weak now to ferry her on to whatever lay beyond. And while the notion could depress her, she continued on, waiting, caretaking, learning Elysion inside and out, until the day the reborn Moon Kingdom general returned…

\----  
The yelling had drawn their attention, and she flew ahead of Kunzite to scope out the scene; when she arrived the situation was nearly out of control – Zoisite hung in the air, held in place by one of the Sailor Senshi, Nephrite was motionless, Jadeite threw daggers ineffectively, but Endymion – she raced forward, aiming at his glowing hand – he was going to give himself away! After all they had done to throw suspicion on Kunzite, after all their careful planning, he was about to throw it all away! Her distraction worked, and she turned in time to see Kunzite’s sword plunge through and eliminate the blue warrior, but Zoisite was badly hurt.

As Endymion worked to heal him, both her mind and heart raced; she had forgotten what it was like to be near him, how he made her feel, but while her emotions were running wild she fought to regain control, thinking back to those texts she had memorized, that theory she had worked on; could she repurpose a soul gem? Could she adopt it as her own, give her soul another casing, another chance at an afterlife? With a powerful soul gem, maybe; it would have to be one that outlived its hosts corporeal form, one like that of a senshi… her eyes flickered to the blue gem suspended in space, and it was only respect for Endymion that kept her in place. When he had finished and the girl had taken it instead, her fury at the lost opportunity overpowered her hesitation around Endymion. They fought, and she fought back, taking out all of her frustrations in her argument, presenting solid points, and for a while it felt like no time had passed at all between them, until…

“Who are you, anyway?”

… she was Beryl. And this time, he didn’t remember her.   
\----------------------------------------  
\---------------------------------------------------  
Phew! Sorry it got all EXPLAINy at the end there. ^^’ and brushed over a lot… and I’m still not sure if all the Beryl points I wanted to make were in there… But hopefully her motives came across, as did her reason for wanting the Sailor Crystals, and why she was so hurt that Mamoru did not remember her. ._.


	7. G is for Grief - Alternate Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an alternate timeline starting just before the end of Chapter 11. In this, after awakening as Endymion, both Mamoru and Usagi escaped on Helios. Usagi was never captured.

She was _gone. Gone!_ His heart ached eternally, a burning hole in his chest that sunk deeper and deeper. His mind could only think of _her_ , Serenity, and how he had utterly failed her. She died for him! She died for him and she was never coming back! He failed, and she was paying the price yet again. In his hands the Golden Crystal was hot, burning like the sun in his palms, a false sun with thousands of promises it could not be counted upon to keep. How could it? How could the Golden Crystal bring everyone back but her, the one it was supposed to save?! Closing his fist around it, he threw it away, using all of his strength to send it flying into oblivion – it was only a curse. A useless curse. Limitless power? Power of growth, healing, and rebirth? Lies! If it were truly powerful it would have brought her back! Helios slowed, arching his wings to follow the crystal’s trajectory, screaming something in his mind, but he didn’t care, and he wouldn’t take it back!

He dismounted right then and there, bringing his leg over Helios’s back and slipping off into the cold night air, falling quickly but landing softly, his black and red cape doing its job to keep him safe. Once on the ground he started running, pushing his muscles harder and harder, faster and faster until his legs burned with the effort. Buildings flew by at incredible speeds, and yet he could still think. He thought of her, of her smile, her laugh, her face as she selfishly died in his arms. _How could she?_ How could she leave him like that?! 

 

And now… he tripped, his legs faltering at last. He lurched forward and landed on his knees, skidding forward harshly until his cape could minimize his inertia. He fell on his hands there, bracing himself as his tears finally flowed freely, his vision swimming before him. Everything was dark. Everything was black, but for her shining face. Like the moon in the dark of night, her memory reached out from the past and lit up his tunneled vision, his mind mercilessly teasing him with what could never be.

 

“Mamoru?” a soft voice hesitantly called after what seemed like an eternity spent staring at her face, tracing the curve of her cheek, the line of her eyes, memorizing what he had already committed to heart. What he could never again have. He did not answer the voice. Mamoru? Chiba Mamoru was but an empty life. His only true friends and family were from the past, a cruel exception made by the Golden Crystal; his time as Chiba Mamoru ended when his true self awakened to this nightmare without her.

“Endymion,” the voice corrected, the footsteps edging closer slowly.

“Go away, Zoisite,” he stated, unmoving from his position on the ground, staring still at the black pavement on hands and knees.

“We have to get you back to safety,” Zoisite insisted. “Venus escaped and she would like nothing more than to kill you.”

‘ _Is your love so fickle, Prince?_ ’ His heart resounded, thumping painfully as her guardian’s words hit home again. He had been unfaithful to Serenity, his one true love. “Let her,” he replied. The idea blossoming like a beacon of light in his mind. He had tried and failed; Serenity was gone, so what reason was there that he survive? And if she were there… if there were such a thing as an afterlife… 

A hand wrapped around his arm and pulled him up. He lashed back, striking whoever it was in the chest and sending them flying backwards, freeing his arm. He turned his head to see who he had struck and saw Jadeite collapsed with his back to a dark streetlamp, his blond head lolled to the side. But now he was conflicted, his mind fuzzy; Jadeite had done nothing wrong. _Moegi had done nothing wrong_. He should not have struck him. He should help, go apologize, heal him, but in his hesitation it was Zoisite who reached him first. He knelt down, putting a hand on Jadeite’s shoulder before twitching at something on his wrist that beeped for a moment before he calmly commented, “Kunzite, we found him.” He nodded, green eyes intent on something just above Endymion, but before he could fully analyze the curious gesture his back was hit with something hard and jolting. 

 

He awoke in his bedroom, his eye snapping open, his senses reading the room; his shitennou were there, as was Helios. Throwing out his planetary senses he again searched for her, part of his heart still hoping that he had been mistaken, but amongst the tiny soul lights throughout the planet, there was no cool silver shine. The window beside his bed was shut and locked, the fairy version of Beryl sitting and staring down at him with some form of concern. Beyond her was the moon in the sky. Soft and pale, nearly full but not quite, its face waning in its cycle. The sight of it gave him conflicting emotions – longing and pain, anger and fear…

“Mamo-chan?”

He wouldn’t have even acknowledged the name if it hadn’t come so unexpectedly from the foot of his bed, but there she was. Serenity’s doppelganger, her blonde hair done in Serenity’s style, her blue eyes nearly the same shade, but that was no excuse. She wasn’t Serenity; she didn’t have Serenity’s glow. She was simply Usa– _Tsukino-san_ , and anything that he might have felt for her was a betrayal to Serenity, his own heart. He didn’t say anything. They hadn’t officially been together, anyway; the kiss from earlier was initiated by her, not him; he’d just have to tell her that he wasn’t interested. He averted his gaze to the ceiling.

“You don’t really want to die, do you?” she continued, her voice shaking.

As if guessing his response and interrupting before he could make it, Kunzite reported, “Sailor Venus managed to escape, but they now know who you are and that we have the Golden Crystal.”

“Venus already knew,” he contradicted. “As did you, Beryl, Nephrite and Helios.” He turned his head on his pillow to face them, watching the look of confusion and betrayal pass over Zoisite’s and Jadeite’s face, part of him marginally relieved to see the latter seemingly recovered from whatever pain he had inflicted. “Am I wrong?” he challenged, but the guilt on Nephrite’s face served to confirm his deduction. 

Kunzite met his gaze full-on, the silver eyes calm and free of remorse as he replied, “You are not wrong.”

“ _We were attempting to spare you_ –“ Helios started.

“Spare me?!” he shot back, propping himself on his elbow, his attention split between Helios, Kunzite, and Nephrite, “Spare me from what?! From memory of her?!” Again he sent out a wave of power, and again nothing surfaced. She was gone, and if he had never reawakened… it would have been as though she had never existed. She could have been lost to the ages, her secrets, her dreams, her hopes, herself, never thought of, never remembered. His voice had lost some passion as it broke through the silence. “I didn’t think you capable of such cruelty.”

“Mamochan,” Tsukino commented, compassion in her tone.

“Take Tsukino-san home,” he ordered, trying to ignore her reaction to the formality of her name, the way she gently withdrew her hand from the end of his bed, how she looked away. It was for the best. He focused the command on Nephrite and Kunzite, knowing now that they obviously knew where she lived, having followed him so many times in the past few weeks. “Give her a communicator to use to contact us if anything happens with the senshi’s soul gems. Keep an eye out for Venus; this isn’t over yet.”

Nephrite, guilt clear on his face, formally bowed, joined by Jadeite rather than Kunzite. They both turned to escort Jewel Tiara home.

“I take it the Moon Princess was not reborn,” Kunzite hazarded, and in the rush of shame and loss Endymion felt, he lashed out, hitting the wall behind him so hard his fist broke through the drywall. The small part of him still concerned with manners wished that Tsukino hadn’t witnessed that as the last thing she saw of him before leaving, but overall the shock of pain and moment of destruction somewhat eased the monumental agony sitting in his chest.

 

When finally they all left, Zoisite and Kunzite trusted to strategize defenses and consider offensive capabilities and Beryl scouting for Venus, Endymion lay back and tried not to think of anything, but was thwarted time and again by the ever-present pain. He wanted to scream. To run, to break walls, to destroy things, anything to ease and distract from the overbearing loss he felt. An idea came to mind as he felt his greatest tool within arm’s reach; he turned on his side to reach for it, the Golden Crystal.

“ _What are you planning to do_?” a disapproving voice demanded of nowhere, Helios suddenly popping into existence and growing until he was fully sized, his garnet eyes glaring, golden horn reflecting the moonlight. He had known. He had known and kept it a secret

“I do not answer to you, High Priest,” he replied coldly.

“ _You do now!_ ” Helios’s mind-speak raged, eyes whirling as he stepped closer, “ _You answer to all of us – your Generals, your Kingdom, and, yes, your High Priest!_ ” Helios’s white wings unfurled, displaying aggressively behind him.

“What has gotten into you?!” Endymion demanded as Helios’s horn inched closer to the head of his bed.

“ _What has gotten into **me?**_ ” Helios returned with disbelief, “ _What has gotten into you?! You ended the world, Endymion! You put thousands into stasis, each and every one at risk, erasing lives, destroying families, veering the course of human history, on a whim! For a girl you refused to let die, while hundreds more were already dying for you and your Kingdom! And now you act as though you will do it again - I will not stand by and let that happen!_ ” 

“What need have I to end the world?” he replied calmly, Helios’s outburst slowly processing, sinking in, internalizing for deeper examination. He turned his gaze to the crystal, raising it above him, watching its facets scatter moonlight across his ceiling. “It did not work the first time, why would I try again and bury her further in the past?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baah. XD I tried to write more on this alternate chapter but don’t want to spend too much time on an outcome that never happened. ^^’ I swapped to the other version pretty much right after “Am I wrong?” and hadn’t touched this since, but wanted to include it in this Alpahbet extra thing because I like the beginning XD Yesss, Mamoru—er, Endymion, mourn her, mwahahahahaa, she’s still right in front of you, fufufufufuu.
> 
> Originally this was the way I had planned for the story to go; rather than Mamoru refusing to accept Endymion, focusing on Usagi and completely refusing to deal with Serenity until the very end, it would have been Endymion living in the past. Usagi would eventually work her way in, comforting him and staying by his side as he mourned Serenity (ouch teeheehee ouchouch ‘cause Usagi is still in love with Mamoru and it obviously hurt her to see him like that), and in the end she would fight with them against Diana and almost die in the process. The Mamoru inside of Endymion is still in love with Usagi, no matter how much he was trying to bury it, and in saving her he finally releases the death-hold he had on Serenity’s memory. … only to have her reawaken as Serenity when the Silver Crystal emerges on the scene, yaaaay happy ending ohohohoh Endymion you fool ohohohohoh
> 
> Ahem. Back to normal actually-happened-in-Cardinal-King stories with H!


	8. H is for Her

# H is for Her.

“Kino Makoto.”

“Here,” Makoto replied sullenly, leaning back in her chair, both arms and legs crossed as she glared forward, determined not to pay heed to the gawkers on either side of her or their stammering whispers thinly hidden behind their hands. Hadn’t they seen bandages before? And if they thought she looked bad, they’d hate to see Inohara and the rest of his gang. Her eyes slid over to Inoue-san minutely, unable to help herself, but the quiet girl sat ram-rod straight, looking anywhere but back at her. Loneliness pulled at her heartstrings – she had protected the girl from a pack of bullies and hadn’t expected anything in return, but she would have liked if this time… if this time, the person she protected didn’t end up as afraid of her as their would-be tormentors. 

The teacher didn’t get very far into the rest of the roll call before an announcement came over the loudspeaker, summoning her to the office. She emptied her desk into her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and left, knowing she’d never see that classroom again. 

…  
Expelled. The boys’ families had spoken up on their behalves – they were only suspended – but she had her reputation against her and no one to vouch for her, so she was out of there and onto the next public high school. She stopped in at an outlet to pick up her new uniform – brown and white, extra long skirt – and afterwards headed home, her gait tight and proud, her green eyes scanning the crowd, daring _anyone_ to mess with her, or to mess with anyone while she was around. She had always fancied herself a protector – in her most romantic of moments, she thought of herself as a guardian, of sorts. Protector of the weak, defender of the downtrodden: Makoto Kino, angel of the streets. But no one would ever see her like that; she was Makoto Kino, tall and scary man-girl. A frown threatened the integrity of her perfected scowl and she checked herself. No weakness.

As she turned the corner to her street a funny, tingling sensation spread throughout her chest. She paused – she was only 14, it couldn’t be a heart attack, right? She shook her head – of course not, she ate well and took care of herself. She continued, but the feeling only proved to grow stronger, until suddenly there was a great weight on her chest, pulling her down; she collapsed, her hand clutching at her chest to ease the pain; every breath was agony. And then there was a voice calling to her, soft at first, but then loud and insistent – ‘ _Jupiter!_ ’  
…  
She didn’t remember fainting, but in her next conscious moment she was somewhere completely different, somewhere stagnant and dead-feeling, the air heavy around her without the hint of a breeze. She sat up carefully and looked around to find herself in the middle of a field of old yellow grass that spread out in every direction for at least a kilometer; about fifty meters behind her loomed a large crystalline structure; around her were for other girls, a blonde with long hair, a girl with long black hair, and another girl with short blue hair; each wore a different school uniform, each seemed to be just waking up.

Immediately her defenses went up – where were they? Had they been drugged and kidnapped? She struggled to her knees, her head feeling heavy, her thoughts sluggish. “Are you guys okay?” she asked as the others started looking around.

“Hnng,” replied the girl with blue hair, her hand to her forehead, “I’m not sure; I can’t think straight.”

“Where are we?” the blonde asked, her eyes scanning the field.

The black-haired girl was glancing around, too, her body language tense. “I’m getting a bad vibe –“

“Well of _course_ you are,” a calm and confident voice interrupted and Makoto wheeled around, falling to her backside as she stretched her hand out to one side, instinctively blocking the girl with the blue hair; she seemed physically the weakest. Before them stood a small woman that exuded power and confidence, dressed in a toga-like uniform. Her hair was done up in two blonde buns at the top and to the side of her head, her eyes were dark and cold. She knew how to fight – the way she carried herself told Makoto that much, and the way she regarded them told her that she was used to winning. “You are gathered in the stronghold of the Earth Kingdom, our sworn enemy – it is only proper for you to sense danger here, Sailor Mars.”

 _Sailor Mars_? It sounded almost like a name – 

“Who are you?” the blonde behind her asked, her voice a direct command to the woman before them.

“I am Diana,” she replied haughtily, “but you will remember that and more once you awaken.”

“Awaken?” the blonde repeated quietly, like a question.

“What do you mean, awaken?” Sailor Mars, if that was the black-haired girl’s name, demanded. She stood and Makoto joined her. “I don’t want any part in this! Take me back to Tokyo!” the other girls stood, joining them.

“I’m afraid you’re already part of this, and there is no going back.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean those lives you were living were false,” she stated coldly, the conviction in her sharp voice made one of the girls behind her take a small step backwards. Makoto’s hands clenched into fists; if it came down to a fight, this Diana wasn’t going to get off easily. Diana, sensing the change, held up a hand placating, her head cocking to one side as though trying to reason with them. Makoto would have taken the opportunity right then and there, grabbing opening to down their captor and escape, were it not for the woman’s words. “Haven’t you felt it? The feeling that you didn’t belong? Like something was missing from your lives, something you could never quite pinpoint. None of you have ever fit in anywhere, am I right?” She paused, and Makoto’s fists loosened; the statement hit home. She had never belonged anywhere, not since her parents died; no one had really accepted her for who she was. “And you’ve always felt like you were meant for something more? Something bigger than yourselves? … it’s because _you are._ ”

Diana straightened, staring at them openly, “You four were elite Lunar warriors, guardians of the Moon Kingdom and protector of the Moon Princess; your lives ended abruptly in a battle against the encroaching darkness threatened by the very kingdom we are standing in now. By some miracle we were reborn, and I ask of you: are you willing to take your places and fight against this evil?”

A crease formed in Makoto’s brow as she looked away, considering; Lunar warriors? Moon Kingdom? Moon Princess? The strangeness of it all was entirely off-putting, but what she had said before, hinting at the loneliness… she had always been good at fighting. She had always been strong, had never questioned her odds in a fight – could that be because she was actually an elite warrior? If darkness were approaching, she would want to fight against it anyway, right? She was Makoto Kino, ‘angel of the streets’. Her mouth twitched up in a semi-smile – alien angel of the streets, she supposed. Moon Kingdom – were they actually from the Moon? “I will,” she stated, crossing her arms.

“Me, too,” the blonde behind her declared, stepping forward until she stood by her side. She was shorter than Makoto – but then what else was new? – but her stance was determined.

“And me,” the short blue-haired girl stated, joining them.

The girl with the black hair paused, and Makoto wondered if this were an all-or-nothing deal. What would happen if Sailor Mars refused? Luckily she never had to find out, as the girl stepped forward with some aggravation and stated, “This’d better not take up a lot of my time.”

Diana smiled – the gesture a little too far on the calculating side for Makoto’s preferences – and suddenly a long pointed spear appeared in her hand; Makoto instinctively fell into a defensive pose, but rather than attack them with it, the woman waved the spear in an arc over her head and then planted it firmly in the ground beside her, her hand lingering on the staff. Bright light pulled Makoto’s gaze upward, and found herself staring at a silver crescent mark hanging in the sky – was this… it couldn’t be magic. … could it? As she watched, the crescent seemed to take shape, growing ridges and shadows, growing larger and larger, as though they were being pulled closer and closer to… a crescent moon?

When the image grew so large as to take up the entire space around them, Makoto finally saw what they were zeroing in on: a castle on the moon made of white stone, a structure new and yet familiar…

And then it all came crashing back to her.

Her life – her younger years, the first time she met everyone, how they waited and waited for Princess Serenity to be born; their first enemy and her creepy prophecy; meeting Serenity for the first time, and loving her from that instant forward. She remembered growing up, from lessons in academics to lessons on the battle field; she remembered visiting the castle gifted to her upon her birth, she remembered playing in the gardens on the Moon, she remembered growing older, attending galas with her friends, dancing or skating the night away under the light of full-phase Earth.

She remembered Serenity’s knack for sneaking off, remembered catching her down on Earth, remembered teasing her about her crush on their Golden Prince, remembered Mars’s apprehension about it. She remembered the stern lectures from Luna and Artemis about how Serenity should not be allowed to visit Earth, that beings from the separate spheres were forbidden to fall in love. She didn’t fully understand why – the gods? What care would the gods have – love is love, and if it is pure it is good; what problems had they goodness and happiness? She remembered Serenity’s confession to them, her trepidation laced with barely-concealed joy. She remembered Queen Serenity’s proclamation, and the heartache it brought. She remembered comforting Serenity, how they all supported her, even if her love was forbidden.

And then came the rumors. And then the fear. And then they could support that forbidden love no further, because Earth was preparing for war.

According to intelligence shared with them by Diana, Earth was amassing weapons in secret, privately training commonfolk in the art of war, looking to the Moon with greed in their hearts. She, too, had heard the stories of the Golden Crystal’s powers, its uncanny ability to solidify the territories of Earth under one banner. Its last bearer brought all continents and peoples of Earth under one flag, Diana warned, would this new bearer wish to bring the Moon Kingdom under his command? Jupiter had never seen war before; she had studied it, read it in the histories, understood it, but the way Diana described the wonton destruction that war brought made her sick to her stomach – Earth was planning that? She could scarcely believe it, and yet the intelligence reports were there. The Earth Kingdom was planning to invade the Moon Kingdom, to take it over violently. What would be the fate of survivors, if survivors would be had?

Their guard of Princess Serenity increased, though something about the whole situation sat foully with Jupiter, something voiced only with her dearest friends, Serenity excluded, and only in the most private of settings. Venus suspected something was amiss – if Earth truly wanted to be joined to the Moon, all they would need was to let things unfold as they had been. Prince Endymion was in love with Princess Serenity, and she with him – their kingdoms could be joined in peace, not war. Mars countered that they did not know the heart of the Earth Prince; Serenity might truly love him, but was he using her? Mercury contradicted that even if he were playing Serenity – and god help him if he were – the result would be the same and Earth would still have no reason to go to war. All Jupiter could voice was that it didn’t feel right, but they all agreed that Serenity’s safety was their top priority.

Which was quite embarrassing when scant days later she managed to escape to Earth and led them on a merry chase through Elysion’s castle that ended with a showdown between them and Endymion’s generals as Serenity pounded on the Golden Prince’s chamber doors. His responses to her direct questions seemed honest – he seemed to have no knowledge of his planet’s upcoming invasion. The meeting ended shortly after, with halting warnings to watch his people and confused returns about for what. Jupiter wanted to trust them, but Serenity’s safety came first. Venus stayed behind to question them further as they escorted Serenity back home.

The next few weeks she remembered as a confused blur; they had tried to tell Queen Serenity that Prince Endymion himself had not known about any invasion plan – leaving out the part about her daughter’s involvement – but all they got in return was anger at their venturing to the surface. She didn’t want to listen to them, choosing instead to remind them what was at stake. Princess Serenity could be killed, and if they were choosing to place their trust the words of the man that could do it over cold hard facts, she hinted that they might not deserve their positions. 

And so the Moon prepared for war, deciding on a preemptive strike in an attempt to dissuade further warfare. Again in secret she and her friends discussed their unease with the notion – wouldn’t striking at their capital only serve to enrage the masses further? – but in the end they knew that they were still students. They had not witnessed war as Diana and Queen Serenity had, and they had read of tactical preemptive strikes working; they had to put their trust in the War Council’s decision. 

The last thing she remembered was the night of the attack, the shock of finding themselves in a new plane of reality – they had moved the principle castle to spare their city and their people, somehow knowing ahead of time about the surprise attack. Their warriors met the warriors of Earth, and she and the other senshi kept in careful agreement to stay out of Diana’s ordering range. They did not want to fight – they were not meant to fight in such wars. Sailor Senshi fought evil, and this… this did not feel evil. But when Queen Serenity landed they had no option to ignore her commands, and so fight they did. She held back, just pushing Earth’s forces into a retreat, until she was met on the field by a challenger – Nephrite, the King of the East, sent to destroy her. He fought hard, and she matched him at every turn, still pressing forward, as Queen Serenity had commanded. She felt unsure of their presence, and fear for her friends – Zoisite was cunning, Jadeite ruthless, Kunzite coldblooded; if they were holding back, they might… she remembered her fatal last step, remembered the crunching of her ribs as his stone knuckles solidly connected with her stomach, remembered calling the lightning and sending it through him… and that was all.

But she was alive. They were all alive – they had survived the battle, and here they were; she turned to the others to find them in their senshi uniforms: Venus, Mercury, and Mars, and her mouth broke into a smile as gratefulness swept through her. “Guys!” she cried, holding her arms out to pull them into a hug. They were laughing together, the sounds almost incredulous, scarcely believing their luck.

“We’re alive!”

“But what happened?” Venus asked, her arms still holding everyone as her eyes regarded Diana.

Diana shrugged, “I’m not sure – a miracle, certainly, perhaps by Queen Serenity and the Silver Crystal.” The woman’s gaze turned to the crystalline structure behind them, and Jupiter’s eyes followed. Queen Serenity… that wasn’t – it couldn’t be…

Immediately, always steps ahead, Mercury pulled back and summoned her computer, pointing it towards the structure, her visor racing across her forehead as data rushed the screen. She seemed puzzled, then attacked the keyboard again with another set of commands. “It’s…. it is Queen Serenity. She’s alive, but barely; she’s in some sort of stasis, protected by the quartz tower.”

“The Silver Crystal?” Diana asked, tension in her tone.

“It’s there, with her,” Mercury replied.

“How do we break her out?” Diana asked again, and Mercury paused, tapping again at her keyboard.

“What happened to everyone else?” Mars asked, “The combatants from both parties – were they, too, reborn?”

“We can assume,” Diana stated, though her attention was clearly still on Mercury. 

“What about Serenity?” Jupiter asked; though her heart was filled, there was still a piece missing; a piece that could only be filled by a mischievous princess. If Queen Serenity had saved them all and brought them to the future, surely Serenity, too, would… be…. But the look on Diana’s face crushed her assumption and set anxiety coursing through her. No.

“She wasn’t at the battle,” Mars spoke quietly, “and this plane is in a dimension separated from our own; the Silver Crystal’s power did not reach that far, did it?”

“No,” Diana shook her head.

“Then she lived on without us,” Mars supposed, looking off. “It must have been terrible for her.”

Jupiter put a hand on Mars’s shoulder, “She had Luna and Artemis with her, right? And the noncombatants of court – she would’ve made it. I bet she made a fantastic Queen.” Her heart was leaden, thinking of Princess Serenity having to go forward alone, robbed of them, of her mother, of her love… but Queen Serenity was right to stop the battle. It should have never started in the first place.

“Princess Serenity never became Queen,” Diana stated, her words like slivers of ice, freezing Jupiter in place with dread. “She died here, on the battlefield.” Barely able to move, Jupiter’s head turned to follow Diana as the warrior raised her arms and stepped backwards, halfway towards the spire containing Queen Serenity. 

Everything that had felt so right was rapidly dissolving as she fought to accept what she was being told. Serenity, on the battlefield? But that wasn’t possible; she knew it was dangerous, she’d been ordered to stay… but Serenity on the battlefield – images flew through her mind as her heart, with her long pigtailed hair and thin white dress, danced across the deadened grass, her face smiling and serene as she picked her way around soldiers dead and dying – she didn’t belong there, it was too dangerous! _She died here, on the battlefield._ Serenity, approached by some unknown evil, its sword raised, terror on her face – “No!” she yelled, collapsing to the ground, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest. They had failed her.

This time, Mars gripped her shoulder, sharing her determination as a means to chase away the imagined images of the past. “Then she _was_ reborn with the rest of us, we just have to find her!”

“I’m afraid not, Mars,” Diana stated, though there was very little regret in her tone. “Our souls guide us to being reborn, and –“

“Are you suggesting Serenity had no soul?!” Mars demanded, her white hot anger summoning similar feelings in Jupiter. That Diana outranked them meant less and less, and now Diana was threatening to cross a line she would very much regret crossing.

“Serenity shared a soul with her mother!” Diana shot back, “Have you forgotten the circumstances of her birth?” she snapped, her eyes nearly contemptuous as she continued. “Her soul was protected with her mothers in the Silver Crystal, as your souls are protected in your Sailor Crystals, and others by their starseeds; we were reborn because our starseeds could separate from our bodies and return to the Cauldron, or whatever other region the miracle had set up for us. If the Silver Crystal is incased in the quartz tower with Serenity, then the Princess could not have been reborn!”

“Then she is gone?” Venus asked quietly.

“Yes.” Diana replied. 

“And you are certain of this?” Venus pressed.

“Yes.” Diana repeated firmly.

“Then why awaken us?” Venus coldly asked. “What are you scheming?”

“Scheming?” Diana spat, straightening to her full height. “Watch your words, Venus. I do not scheme, I plan vengeance on those who killed our Princess – or do you think her death unworthy of avenging?”

“The people of Earth are not to blame,” Venus contradicted, “They were victims in this war, too.”

“All of them?” Diana challenged, teasing in her tone. Venus’s face was resolute, but she did not answer. “You thought this war was concocted, didn’t you?” Diana continued, pacing slowly before them. “That was why you hesitated in the final fight; did you ever wonder what could have happened if you fought under my direction with your full strength as soon as the battle began?” she paused, her gaze jumping to each of them in turn. “We would have won, and Serenity could have been spared. … You think me some kind of warmonger. You think this battle was unnecessary, this war unjust – don’t deny it, I heard of your ‘secret meetings’. What you don’t understand was how deeply you had been fooled. Had you but trusted in me and my judgment over the Golden Prince and his lies, he might not have had the opportunity to kill her.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “He what?”

“He killed her. Prince Endymion killed Princess Serenity, mercilessly running her through with his blade. I saw it, though I was not fast enough to prevent it. I fetched Queen Serenity, hoping the Silver Crystal’s power could heal her, but when we returned we were too late, and she was gone, lying dead in a pool of her own blood, alone and betrayed.”

The image was too much; her heart felt so beaten and broken she wished it would just stop beating. She heard Mercury sobbing quietly, the sound of keystrokes having stopped minutes ago. Tears were in her own eyes, tears of regret, sadness, pain and loss, but those feelings were soon replaced by blinding anger. They had trusted him. 

“That was when the miracle happened – Queen Serenity must have – wait!” Diana called, but both Jupiter and Mars were already moving. She had gotten to her feet in a flash, locked eyes with Mars, and both had understood the other exactly. Screw Diana and her scheme; they would find that prince and kill him themselves, plain and simple. It was their duty – Protection and Courage, War and Passion, they would avenge their Princess and bring the filth of the planet to justice. They didn’t know how to leave this dimension, but the ruins of the castle seemed like a good place to start looking. 

Diana teleported in front of them, blocking their path. Her eyes were murderous, “And how do you propose to find him? The city is filled with millions of people, of which he could be any. And would he be enough? Is one prince worth our Princess? What of his generals, his advisors, the scores of other people reborn from that time period? The people of Earth are a poison too dangerous to let roam free, and already they have landed on our Moon. We will have our revenge on the Golden Prince and stop them, but you must cooperate with me to make it happen. We need to awaken Queen Serenity, and for that,” she turned back to Venus and Mercury; Jupiter turned too, to see the pair of them conversing quietly, Venus’s hand on Mercury’s arm as they looked at the screen together. “We need energy. We need the Golden Crystal.” She pulled their attention back to herself, “Help me find it,” she promised, “and you can have the Prince to yourselves.”  
………..

And so they started. Diana was able to weave her magic into shadows to turn them into creatures that followed their every command; they used these creatures to gather energy from the surface and transport it back to Serenity’s encasement. At first it went very well, but then, slowly, their Phases were attacked and defeated, the energy they gathered dissipated before it could be used. They started accompanying the creatures to keep an eye on things and defend the energy, and it was then that they met their enemy.

The “Heavenly Kings”, the general s of the Golden Kingdom reborn. Mars fought them first, and it was by their hand that she met her end.  
……..  
Mercury rushed to the center of a scorched circle, her computer out and visor filling with information, as both Jupiter and Venus called out for Mars, knowing in their hearts that she was gone. But there was still hope – if they could find her Sailor Crystal, perhaps there was some way that they could bring her back. Maybe Queen Serenity could give her new life, else guarantee that she would be reborn someday, but in the end they found nothing, and Mercury’s data suggested that Mars’s Crystal had been stolen from the scene.

“Serenity,” Jupiter choked, “And now Mars, too?! What happens to her? Why do they want her Sailor Crystal?! It wasn’t enough to kill her - they had to imprison her soul, too?!” Lightning sparked all around her, her mind struggling to come up with a reason for that amount of cruelty. “I’ll get her back,” she vowed, “I’ll make them give her back, or I’ll kill them! And then I’ll kill them anyway for what they’ve done!”   
………  
In the end, she wasn’t strong enough. She had underestimated them, made mistakes. She didn’t find out where Mars’s Crystal was, and the anguish that had been wracking her heart made her clumsy. She was once again pitted in battle against Nephrite, and this time, he alone won. When she realized what had happened, she only had one wish: to see them all again. Serenity and Mars, Mercury and Venus – she felt the tear in dimensions and their presence before she disappeared, wishing Mercury hadn’t seen her final moments. If only they could have had more time together, without war. A normal life with them – that was her wish.


	9. I is for Insurance

_My name is Hanada Kaito, and if you are reading this, two things have happened:_  
1\. The World has been saved.  
2\. My friends and I are dead. 

_Those two statements may seem to be unconnected, but I assure you, they are intimately linked. Our performance today will determine the fate of the planet, and the chances that we will survive are knowingly slim, but still we will fight to our utmost to save this world. We are the Kings, and we are all that stand between peace and utter annihilation by an alien force, and if we do die while saving the world, I, North King, do not want to slip quietly into the night, leaving parents and loved ones in the dark as to our whereabouts and the rest of the world blind to our sacrifice, so in this missive I intend to spell out everything that lead up to this point, answering questions I’m positive the police and media have been dying to understand._

_First off, many suppositions made on the web forum Tokyo Underground have gotten very close to the truth, and I’m almost sorry to have had to purposefully lead the authors astray in their trains of thought by providing false logic – my screen name there is TrueBlue, and after May 19th, anything I wrote was purposefully leading a false trail away from the truth._

_Chronologically, the truth is this:  
Many millennia ago, the world was united under one kingdom – the Golden Kingdom – centered in what we believe to be the old Babylonian area near the Fertile Crescent, in a place then called Elysion. All corners of the planet – not just Europe, Asia, and Africa, but the Americas, Australia, and Antartica, too – paid homage to the Golden Kingdom; major rulers of the areas sent their first born sons to serve as guard for the heir to the Throne of Earth to show their allegiance and solidify their ties. It might have continued in this manner indefinitely, but the era came to an end in what was meant to be a great time of peace, when suddenly and without provocation, the Moon Kingdom attacked._

_What we have pieced together in this present time is that certain powers within the Kingdom of the Moon – eventually named the Dark Kingdom – used the knowledge that the Prince of Elysion, Endymion, possessed the powerful Soul Gem of Earth to twist the Moon Queen’s mind against us. (I know this is complicated and foreign, but try to keep up)._

_Before the Moon Army struck, the magical priests of Elysion moved the capital to an alternate dimension, so that the Moon Armies could not strike at the rest of the planet and endanger its citizens unnecessarily. The armies met in a great battle, and in the end, the Moon Princess died. Upset by this, the Earth Prince used the soul of Earth to end the fighting by transporting all of the lives in that battle to be reborn in the future._

_And now we get to the present day.  
Months ago, odd attacks started on citizens of the city that left them either dead or drained of their energy, until sightings of a mysterious costumed hero started saving the day. The name he was given in the papers – the usually dismissed articles – was the Evening Star, a moniker, I believe, granted by the sight of light reflecting off of his scimitar. We know him as West King, Kobai Khalid to this era, Kunzite, a guardian to the Prince of Earth, in his last. He was the first of us to awaken, and served as a decoy to better protect the reborn Prince._

_Unfortunately, fate saw differently, as the next of us to awaken was none other than the Prince himself, though neither he nor many of us recognized him until much later. Many remember the attack on the jewelry store where only a rose was left behind, and the sighting of a mysterious masked youth reported by the night worker – that was Cardinal King, Chiba Mamoru in this life, Prince Endymion of Earth in his last. The pegasus spotted with him was Helios, the High Priest of Elysion who sought us out to fight against the creatures that were attacking Earth._

_Next to awaken was yours truly, in the fight on the cram school. I awoke as North King, and in my past life I was Zoisite. Cardinal King and I worked together alone for a time, as West King kept his distance and we had yet to find others._

_When we did, it was during our first battle against a powerful warrior for the Moon Kingdom, reawakened in this life and turned against the planet that had raised her. Her name was Sailor Mars to us, but in recent newspaper articles about the five missing girls, I’m confident that she was born here as Hino Rei, daughter of the congressman. Unable to change her, we had no hope to escape without defeating her, and we would have been defeated ourselves had it not been for Moegi Yuu, who transformed into South King and turned the dangerous situation around. In his past life, he was Jadeite, another of Prince Endymion’s guardians._

_Our folly at this point was that we did not remember any of our past lives until much later. We pieced together that Evening Star was a protector of the Prince, but not that Mamoru was the prince reborn, so, treating Mamoru as another of our own, and knowing only what Helios remembered in his fractured memory, we set out to find our Prince._

_We thought we found him in Midori Nero, our investigations landing on the night his mansion was attacked by Sailor Jupiter; that night, too, we might have been defeated were it not for Jewel Tiara, an as-of-then unaffiliated heroine who appeared periodically to help us out or collect a Sailor Crystal (left when a Sailor Senshi, like Sailor Mars, was defeated). In this life, Jewel Tiara was born as Tsukino Usagi; we do not believe she was reborn from the past, so in all of this, her actions are to be the most applauded, and the most grieved should we fail and she not return._

_In the attack at the Bridal Store, Midori Nero awakened as a King, and while we thought he was the Prince, he is instead East King, known as Nephrite in his past life. He was instrumental in saving the day, having defeated Sailor Jupiter, saving the rest of us and several members of the public in her downfall. In this life, I believe she was the missing orphan, Kino Makoto._

_The night of the jewelry store riots was yet another attack by the Dark Kingdom, orchestrated through video tapes by Sailor Mercury. That night, West King officially joined our team, and Sailor Mercury, the missing genius Mizuno Ami, was defeated._

_At that point, things became even more complicated – skipping over a small number of events, we arrive at the first city-wide blackout, and the appearance of Sailor Venus. We knew she had to be taken down, and devised a plan to do so, but in events that followed, Jewel Tiara was attacked, East King – then still thought to be our Prince – stepped in front of the blast and nearly died. Cardinal King, in an effort to save his life, unlocked the power of the Golden Crystal, the soul gem of Earth, to heal East King and fully awakened as Prince Endymion._

_In the confusion that followed – suddenly our Prince’s identity had changed and the Crystal, the object the Senshi was searching for, were both out in the open – we got Endymion out of there, but Jewel Tiara was captured by Sailor Venus, who then escaped our grasp. In a courageous act, Jewel Tiara left behind the crystals she had collected from the fallen senshi, refusing to let them be used by the Moon Kingdom to further their ends. We kept them safe for as long as we could, and learned what we could from them and the ancient Moon technology that contained them._

_Next we get to the most recent blackout, wherein most of the city and many people were attacked. That was no U.F.O., or great creature – it was Sailor Venus. Her attacks – golden lasers – drained targets of their energy. We finally caught up to her, fought her, and defeated her. In this life, I believe she was Aino Minako._

_Cardinal King was the reason those at the hospital fully recovered that night. He selflessly risked exposing himself to the media to save as many lives as he could, channeling the healing powers of the Golden Crystal to energize and stabilize the injured population. Many people owe him their lives, and based on what happens tonight, many more now do, too. Chiba Mamoru is the most selfless, honorable, and best person I know, and if his name is ever forgotten, I will never forgive any of you._

_That night Tsukino Usagi was returned to us, and awakened days later from a coma. She found Midori, and tricked him into retrieving the sailor crystals for her; when she got them, she nearly killed Midori before teleporting back to the enemy’s base – in her time being kidnapped, she was brainwashed and is being controlled by the enemy to serve their needs._

_We are now flying towards where we believe the enemy to be stationed – to Babylon, to the alternate dimension created thousands of years ago – to Elysion, and the battlefield that has stood empty since that time long past. We believe the enemy, Diana, will use the powers contained in the sailor crystals, along with the energy Sailor Venus collected from the people before her demise, to awaken the ancient Queen of the Moon, who will then destroy or enslave the planet in revenge for her daughter’s death all those years ago. We believe this threat is credible as she may possess the Silver Crystal, a gem as powerful, if not more powerful than, the Golden Crystal, with a near infinite capacity for destruction.  
We do not know if we will win, but we will do our best to save this world._

_If you do not wish to share our story in its entirety, please at least tell our families and the families of the missing girls that we will not be returning, so they don’t worry unnecessarily and can move on with their lives._

_And open some sort of medical treatment fund in the name of Chiba Mamoru. I think he’d like that._

Hanada read over the final draft of his work, finally deciding that he had struck the right balance of information and too-much-information in the piece. He sighed, then signed it, and placed it in a fresh manila envelope. The plane began its descent and he sealed it, and wrote out careful instructions on the front, despite the captain’s instructions over the loudspeaker.

When the plane hit the tarmac and everyone started to leave, he stayed behind and gave his instructions verbally to the flight attendant before relinquishing the envelope; if Midori hadn’t assured him that she was left with instructions for time-sensitive, important documents before, he wasn’t quite sure what he would have done to ensure its security.

He felt more at peace as he piled into Kobai’s cousin’s van now that their legacy had a chance to be shared, but the peace was soon overtaken by nervous energy at the idea of what was to come.


	10. J is for Jewel Tiara

Usagi woke up, looked around, and groaned. She rolled into a sitting position and stared grumpily at the homework on her table. She let out a great sigh and picked up her pencil – she had her name on her paper. She could _definitely_ do the English worksheet from this point. She moved her pencil to the first question and read it in her head – _The cat (sit / sat) on the porch._ – and tapped the choices thoughtfully.

What time was it, anyway? 

She glanced at her chicken alarm clock – 2:00 am?! Oh _no way_! She had to finish quickly so she could sleep! She circled an answer and went on to the next one. _The man (stand / stood) on the platform._ She chewed on the end of her pencil in concentration; stand or stood? Why was the man on the platform? Was he waiting for his girlfriend to come home? Maybe they were separated from each other against their wills, and had devised a secret plot to meet up again so they could run away together, just like in her manga? Her eyes strayed to the open comic beside her homework – what would happen to them next? Could they get away without her yakuza brother finding out? She was halfway reaching for it before she caught herself, shook her head, and got back to work, choosing an answer at random.

_The girl (run / ran) to school._

_The cow (jumps / jumpeds) over the moon._

Cows jumping over the moon? Usagi snickered to herself, choosing a random answer. Her lamp turned off at that moment, and she groaned – the bulb just had to go now, when she was on a roll, right? But then she stopped, staring at the shadow on her desk, backed by the moonlight streaming through her window. Two cats? She turned around quickly, putting her knees beneath her so she could see over her bed to the window beyond, her pulse racing –

But nothing was there. 

She whipped around, looking for the shadows, but they were gone. 

Doing homework this late at night was just not good for people, Usagi decided, putting the half-completed papers back into her english folder. For her own health, she should go straight to bed – it was really her only option. She stood and stretched in the dark, then turned back towards her nice comfy bed, with her cute rabbit and moon duvet and fluffy pillows and black and white cats and – WAIT!

She jumped backwards, throwing herself against the wall, staring at the intruders as her heart slowly came out of her throat and back into her chest. She laughed at herself, “Hahahaha, There you two are, I thought I was imagining you,” she scolded mildly, waving them away. “Now, listen, I would love to keep you, but Shingo hates cats and, this being an unfair and truly cruel world, that means I’m not allowed to keep you. So head back through the window and…” but the window wasn’t open. How had they…

“Tsukino Usagi!”

Usagi threw herself back against the wall, looking around for a place to hide. The cat talked. The black cat talked. It knew her name, and came in without a window, and now it was sitting on her bed, talking to her. Maybe she was still sleeping. She had to still be sleeping. Yeah, she hadn’t woken up yet, this was just a weird dream. “Ha ha ha… I’m dreaming,” she nervously stated – if you told your dream you were dreaming you could wake up or control it or something, right? 

“This isn’t a dream, Usagi,” said the white cat. She really wished he hadn’t.

“Usagi, we have a very important mission for you, and we believe that you’re the only one that can do it.”

Usagi motioned to herself, slowly peeling off the wall. 

The white cat nodded. “My name is Artemis, and this is Luna, and we need your help.”

The black cat – Luna – jumped and spun in the air, and when she finished, a pretty white hair clip landed on the bed. “Take this pin,” she said, her voice heavy and sad through her determination, “And call out Moon Twilight Activation.”

Feeling sad for the cat, Usagi reached forward and took the hair pin, her fingers moving carefully over the pearly substance so she didn’t accidentally drop it. She repeated the phrase, and in a rush of chills, she was suddenly transformed – her pajamas changing into a pretty white dress, cinched at the waist with a wide black belt. She wore boots and gloves, and a really thick collar-necklace; there was a veil over her nose and mouth, and a tiara across her forehead. What in the world…?

The pair visibly relaxed. “Good. Now,” said Luna, “Things are changing in your world, Usagi, and we’re helpless to stop it. We need you to do something for us, something that means a great deal to us.”

Usagi inched closer and sat on the edge of the bed; neither cat moved in the slightest. She reached out to touch Luna – she seemed so sad, she wanted to comfort her, but her hand passed right through her. Concerned, Usagi tried one more time, as her eyes welled up with tears – was this why they couldn’t do anything now? Were they ghosts? Why were they so sad?

“Usagi-chan,” Luna replied gratefully, though Usagi didn’t think the cat had actually felt anything. “Thank you. Will you help us, Usagi-chan?”

Usagi didn’t know if she could. She wasn’t really smart in school, wasn’t particularly good at sports, or anything beyond video games and reading manga, but they were so sad, she couldn’t say no even if she didn’t want to help. “I can try,” she replied, and they told her about the crystals left behind when a sailor senshi died. She didn’t understand everything they said, but she believed it was something she could do. Monsters would be attacking the town, they wanted her to hang around the battles and, when they ended, if a girl in a brightly colored sailor costume was defeated, they wanted her to take the crystal that appeared when the girl disappeared. They wanted her to take it and run as fast as she could, to hide it from people who wanted them. They showed her where the crystals could fit in her belt, and told her that if anyone but her were to touch the crystals, they could get very hurt. 

And then they left.


	11. M is for Motive

Year after year.

Decade after slow-moving decade.

It was always the same now. Nothing seemed to change – not since the Chaos Wars. Not since Serenity settled down on this tiny moon in this remote system and summoned guardians from the surrounding planets. There was nothing but peace and prosperity and parties.

She hated every moment of it.

Sure, at first it was almost interesting. The star of the system – Sol – was without a sailor crystal, which meant one of two intriguing situations: either a) the previous senshi of this system had been one with Sol and had recently died, which meant Chaos must have been here recently and could return at any moment to finish the job, or b) the sailor crystal of Sol had been permanently destroyed, leaving the star open to Chaotic invasion. In either case, she had to be on her toes that first century, watching the star for any sign of movement, chaotic or cosmotic, as Serenity set about creating and assembling her court. Serenity trusted her to see to all matters of war – offense and defense. She trusted her to think faster than the enemy and react to keep them on top. Diana reveled in this trust, and worked hard to secure Serenity’s hold on the system, but time wore on and nothing happened. 

Soon Diana had had other duties – the training of the Defense Senshi, assisting in setting up the stations on their gas-giant (and dwarf planet – the range would be useful) home-worlds to alert them to any dangers approaching the system, teaching them to revere and hold close to the love and respect they felt for Serenity and her infant heir as they set out on their missions.

She assisted in training the Guardian Senshi – she had even helped pick the number for the guardian team. Three was customary, but she suggested four – the inner terrestrials. When Serenity refused to awaken the senshi of the planet Earth to use in her heir’s defense, Diana did not reconsider – they needed four, so they took the largest and closest of the gas giants to fill in the gap. These four were awakened soon before the heir’s birth, and after the second Serenity was born, their growth readjusted to match the infant’s, rather than racing to reach Serenity’s maturity, so at first she had very little to do – she left that stuff to the babysitters from Mau. They would teach the guardians through their younger years, and she would take over once they were mature enough to handle combat training.

And she did. She analyzed their powers, their strengths and weaknesses, both mental, physical and energetic. She saw the potential in Venus and gave her special training in strategy and leadership, of looking for and exploiting weaknesses in their enemies, and set into motion her training as the heir’s body double.

But once all that was set into motion and became routine, she grew bored. There were no battles to fight, no wars to be won, no enemies to test herself against.

Every now and again she would take the guardian senshi to Earth, detransformed, and lead them on various hunts. They took down fantastic and dangerous monsters as well as clever and mysterious prey, testing their mental abilities and physical beyond the boons granted by accessing their sailor crystal. Once in a blue moon – a favorite expression of those on Earth – they would come across a pocket of Chaos against which they could truly test themselves. 

But still she grew bored.

A millennia past – or very close to one – and her discontent had filled her to the brim. She was not an instructor. She was not a dancer. She was a hunter – a warrior, a defeater of evil, an intelligent strategist, and here she was, wiling away her time on this white rock, listening to ballroom shenanigans while others were getting better and better at the hunt. She watched the battles on Earth closely, occasionally alighting in disguise to help one side or another as she saw fit, and that was when she got her idea.

The Moon should go to war against the Earth.

They could test their strength, and finally bring the last planet under their control; she could convince Serenity that Earth shouldn’t be left to it’s own devices – free will of the population be damned. 

They could be dangerous, after all.


	12. Q is for  Queen

Q is for Queen

As she stared down at the brilliant blue marble, she couldn’t help the tilt of her head, or the furrow of her brow; could Diana be right? 

The Earth had always been her charge – part of the deal she made to inhabit this moon was that she would watch over the Earth and protect it from Chaotic influences. Centuries had flown by since she took up the mantle of benevolent overseer, and she had done nothing wrong. She had even left the planet’s sailor crystal to its own devices, refusing to pull it into her service in favor of seeing what the senshi of Earth would do on her own, despite the odd choices it had made in repeatedly choosing a male host and thus never developing as a senshi. She had stayed out of the budding civilization’s politics, made it law that her people should not interact with Terrans, less they risk antagonizing them, and yet here were the reports, straight from Diana’s sources: Earth’s Golden Kingdom was secretly amassing armies, possibly intending to take her Moon into its possession. 

Her finger twitched towards the display, and the covert pictures opened and spread out, Diana’s message repeating itself in her memory.

_Your Majesty, is it really so far-fetched to believe that the Earth would want us under their control? Even our most basic sciences seem as magic to them, and our magic itself could be confused with god-like powers – taking the Moon would mean advancing themselves, leaping forward by several millennia in just one crucial battle. Serenity, it’s the start of a new Golden Age; you know as well as I that the Earth Prince Endymion has possession of the Golden Crystal, and as all other holders, his goal will be to spread peace and prosperity, but only after reuniting his race through war. His predecessor united the people under one banner after several bloody years of conflict and ushered in the long peace – we know little else about the Golden Crystal beyond its ability to bring the humans of that planet together. They’ve got their planet – we’re the next thing. The next big target._

_And if we allow them to continue as they are, they’ll overrun us._

\--------------

Months passed, and still Diana’s reports flooded in, pictures of training camps in remote areas, of the Earth Prince and his ‘Kings’ playing war games, of councils held in Elysion, their capital city. While at first she had not been convinced, with more evidence piled at her feet it was foolish to turn a blind eye on the activities. Her concern mounted as Diana tastefully reminded her what was at stake.

Her eyes slid from her Earth-gazing balcony to the gardens below, where Serenity and her guardians chatted and laughed, Luna and Artemis with them. If Earth were to attack… 

\--------------

Where were they? Her eyes scanned the Earth’s surface, staring hard at the Fertile Crescent region and the hidden training facilities therein. Her cameras searched in live-time, but still she could not see them. But she knew they were there.

Plotting, no doubt.

Plotting her demise, planning the murder of her daughter, the massacre of her people, the destruction of her kingdom. They were there, all right. How could she have been so blind? So trusting? So _gullible_ as to let them govern themselves? To let the Golden Crystal choose its own host that could rise in such a way to oppose her? Her, the Queen of the Moon? Empress of the Solar System?!

If she could but find the planned usurpers and do away with them, she could stand to spare the rest – or could she? … if she killed their leaders, even if it were in preemptive self-defense, it would give them reason to attack again in the future. She sighed, staring harder – she might have to restart the entire planet as to not deal with the repercussions.

Why did they have to be so selfish?!

If only she could just use the Silver Crystal and restart it now they could spare pain on both sides. Earth would just fall into a soft slumber and a new populace would be able to take up where they left off. She might even be able to warp their memories – erase all knowledge of her Moon Kingdom from their minds – but with the Golden Crystal still on Earth, actively protecting the citizens, her Illusionary Silver Crystal might not be able to completely rework them. She’d have to send it to the Cauldron first.

Which means Diana’s plan might be the only way.

The Moon would have to go to war, to protect itself and its future.


	13. Z is for Zenith

Mamoru stepped carefully around his broken table, edged between a cabinet with broken plates and a splintered chair, and touched down on living room carpet, where he warily resisted the urge to start cleaning up the cutlery and shattered glasses strewn across the floor. He tried to push the thought of the fight that had caused the destruction from his mind, but it wasn’t easy. 

 

As soon as he had entered the building, the supervisor had stopped him and berated him for the incredible noise from the previous day – a lot of his neighbours had been disturbed by the commotion, and he should really be more considerate of others if he wanted to remain a tenant of the building. He had briefly considered blaming it on a break-in, but cast the thought aside; as nice as it might have been to have financial assistance reoutfitting his kitchen and some of his living room, he didn’t want the police looking into it and possibly linking Midori and Usagi to the destruction. Instead, he had apologized, stated it would never happen again, and went on his way. 

 

And now, just glancing back into the kitchen would remind him of how they had found Midori. Seeing the couch out of the corner of his eye as he passed it reminded him of what Midori had said, and the picture it had painted of Usagi, possessed as Jewel Tiara. In the end they had made it – they had, against the odds, saved the world, but the journey had been a hard one.

 

Mamoru made it through the living room and into his bedroom, grabbed a bag, and started packing to spend the night elsewhere – Hanada and Midori had offered; he’d take one of them up on it. As he was in the restroom, packing his toothbrush, a voice startled him.

 

_So this is where you disappeared to._ Mamoru’s lip twitched up in a half-smile involuntarily as a small pegasus popped into existence just over the toilet. Helios threw his head, rearranging his mane as he regarded him with a sunstone-hued eye, _Everyone had been so sure you returned to the hospital to visit with Usagi-chan._

 

“She should rest,” he explained with a shrug, packing other toiletries, “She and the other girls have been answering questions from detectives ever since they woke up again.” 

 

_So you did go and see her again._ Helios smugly replied.

 

Mamoru ignored the jab and led his bag through the door to his bedroom, where he packed pajamas, some clothing, and threw his bag on his bed to cover his school uniform with a dry-cleaning bag, all the while remembering how nervous and excited Usako had been when he popped by before heading back here; the detectives were annoying, but she was following the other girls’ leads with the answers – they had remembered nothing. They had faint recollections of falling down in public, and hazy images of a wide-open field, but that was it. Usagi was fairly certain that was all they remembered, honestly, except she believed they might recognize each other from somewhere. He had left soon after, noticing that ex-Venus was striking up a conversation with ex-Jupiter and knowing Usako deeply wanted to meet them again. 

 

He knew they would love her; he hoped they would never have to reawaken as Senshi again. They deserved peace and a normal life, free from whatever terrible memories awaited them should transforming prove to cure them of their current amnesia. 

 

_You’re going back to school tomorrow, then?_ Helios asked as Mamoru slung his overnight bag over his shoulder, and then his uniform on top of that, gripping the hanger head with the duffle straps. 

 

He reached down and picked up his school briefcase, a brow quirking at Helio’s question. “Why wouldn’t I?”

 

_You could stand to take a few days to rest, too, you know._ Helios replied, gliding to keep pace. _Midori’s practically declared he’s staying home for the rest of the week, and is working on getting the others to join him._

 

Mamoru smiled, “And what does Kobai have to say about that?” Really, practically anyone else’s name could have fit there, though; then again, Hanada had been known to skip school on occasion, so maybe not...

 

_He looked almost agreeable._

 

Both of Mamoru’s brows raised – Kobai didn’t seem the type; Kunzite definitely hadn’t been, but then, they weren’t their past selves.

 

He locked the door behind them, and glanced down the hallway to make sure they were alone before he asked, “Has Beryl come back yet?”

 

_No,_ Helios replied gustily, _She intends to stay in Elysion and do what she can to repair and cleanse it._

 

“Should I…” Mamoru trailed off, not exactly knowing how to phrase the question, just as he didn’t know what he would say to her if Helios said he should. He had hurt her feelings – without meaning to, mostly – and nothing about their relationship had changed. She had nearly died for him – twice, if you count transforming herself into a fairy and sacrificing an afterlife on the off-chance he and his friends would be reborn – but that didn’t mean he returned her romantic affections, and he didn’t know how else he could tell her that would make her feel any better.

 

_No,_ Helios replied, to Mamoru’s relief, _I think it’s best to let her be for a while._

 

They started down the stairs together before Mamoru asked his next question, honestly a little nervous about this one, too. “So, what are you going to do now?”

 

Helios tossed his main irritably, _What, you think you could get rid of me so easily?_ He whirled around on him, red eyes flashing in playful irritation, _Prince Endymion, you have been reborn without court or council but with the ability to change this planet, for better or for worse. My job as your chief advisor is only just beginning. There is no way I could leave you now._

 

“So now you’ve promoted yourself to ‘chief advisor’, huh? On whose authority?” he teased.

 

_On my own, as the High Priest of Elysion._ Helios sniffed.

 

“Oooh, so you’re keeping that title, too?”

 

_It’s still mine. Chief Advisor is simply an addition to my previous duties._

 

“I don’t know, that seems like a lot for one person.”

 

_It’ll be tough, but I’ll manage somehow._

 

Mamoru grinned. “I’m sure you will,” he replied, in all honesty. They reached the door to the stairwell and he paused, his hand on the handle. Helios drifted into place on his shoulder, arranging himself as a stuffed toy – something neither of them particularly enjoyed, but at the moment he preferred that to going without his company. “Helios,” he said before opening the door, “Thank you. For everything.”

 

Helios flicked his tail so the long silver hair smacked Mamoru on the back of his head. _It’s not over yet, but you’re welcome._

 

He opened the door and almost ran into a young boy on the other side. He excused himself, ignoring the look Helios was getting from the red-eyed child, and they went on their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for Cardinal King! :D This last one leads directly into the sequel~ I'll link that here when I get the first chapter up and rolling ^-^ As for the pieces I've skipped, I'll go back through and add those as I do them. ^^' I got inspired and plotted all of the next arc (and maybe the one after that, heh heh heh...) so the alphabet drabbles are cast aside for the moment. ^^'


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